Adrian wrote: > The practice of tying to the bank protection worries me. It isn't > designed to take the strains involved. I'm not surprised you found > quite a lot of it to be "bent and battered". After the time it takes > to get BW to install the stuff, I hate to see it being pulled loose so > soon.
But in many cases the rings have been installed on a U shaped bracket over the edge of the piling by BW themselves so, if they install them, is it any wonder that people use them? Also a lot of the bending and battering that you encounter is caused by boats hitting the edge hard as they come *into* the side so it tends to be smashed in rather than pulled out, an entirely different scenario. Personally I always try to find the closest aperture to the ground anchor rod and buried piling plate, if at all possible, as that has two advantages: 1. The load is distributed well back from the edge of the piling as the tie rod is designed to restrain the outward movement of the piling, far more load than my boat can impose on the structure. 2. The armco linking beam won't get opened up from the piling sheet by the pull of the piling hook as it is firmly linked to the piling at that point. This prevents the need to have to get the lump hammer out in the morning to free your piling hook from its jammed location between the two. Roger
